Grilled King Oyster Mushrooms a la NYT

When we were called and asked to prepare a dish for Kim Severson’s “Fat Pack” article in the New York Times that the photographer could watch me cook that very weekend, we took one look in the refrigerator and noticed we had a package of great, big, phallic King Oyster eryngii mushrooms, along with our usual staples of soy sauce, hot chile peppers and scallions.

“How about grilled King Oyster Mushrooms?” Rachel said to Phaedra, the NYT Dining Section photo editor.

“Great! We’ll be there Saturday morning at 9am”.

The resulting recipe that was used in my photo that accompanies the piece — which was originally intended to be published but ended up on the cutting room floor — pretty much came together last minute as the photographer was setting up. My idea was to replace the fattening butter yaki that typically is used as the prime flavor component of this dish with something more like a teriyaki sauce or a Korean BBQ marinade, but with an Awase Miso and fresh chili punch, and using a small amount of molasses instead of sugar.

Clean scallions and separate the white part from the green. Slice the scallion greens and reserve for garnish. Mince the scallion whitesand put in a bowl with the miso paste, grated ginger, garlic, minced red pepper, white pepper, molasses, soy sauce, rice vinegar, broth or water, and sesame oil. Stir to combine.

Begin heating your grill pan or outdoor grill. Lightly spray the grate with cooking oil, or use a silicone basting brush to apply a scant amount of oil.

Slice the king oyster mushrooms lengthwise into 1/3 inch thick planks. Brush one side of each mushroom slice with the glaze as you place it, glaze side down, on the grill. Then brush the tops of all the slices. Grill for 3-4 minutes on each side, turning when the underside is well marked and basting to use up the glaze.

Serve hot or at room temperature, garnish with reserved scallion greens and sesame seeds. Serve with brown rice as a side dish (serves 4) or main course (serves 2). The leftovers are great sliced and added to a salad.

wow, your ex-partner sure seems like an archetypal a-hole. love the “culture of deprivation” idiocy as if dying young and sneering at food that apparently isnt macho enough isnt a culture of deprivation in itself.

Great article! I had a hunch the article would involve you, and I was right! I love the look of this dish. I keep seeing these mega-mushrooms in the store and have been curious to something good to cook with them that would show off their original form. Thanks for the inspiration.

The article was, as I assumed, wonderful, and seemed to understand the entire issue .. thank you, Jason, for all you are doing to help others with your posts here, photos, and recipes .. we can take heart from this man who brought such joy and expertise to his founding of eGullet … only the website URL has changed .. Jason is the same warm and interesting guy he always was, but lighter!

Loved the article and the recipe looks excellent. It just baffles me how Steven can make comments like that!! Like I said on eGullet, it reminds me of a friend I used to have who thought dinosaurs are a hoax. Talk about denial.

Loved the article and flabbergasted about the diabetes comments from Steve. 2 years ago, I started a new medication( new at the time) for my diabetes called Byetta. It prolongs gastric emptying so you stay full longer and you need a lot less food. The weight started falling off and I was never hungry. Made me realize how much I was eating before to maintain that weight. Unfortunately, because Byetta works so well, people who are not diabetic are clamoring to get it for weight loss so the company changed their adverstising to downplay that aspect of it. It does do a great job of controlling my blood sugar too!!

I made this recipe, with some variations. I used a frying pan instead of a barbeque (so it wasn’t technically grilled), a little sambal manis (Indonesian chili paste with soy sauce) instead of the chili, some random mild miso instead of the awase miso, mirin instead of rice vinegar, black instead of white pepper and skipped the molasses. I only used the green parts of the scallions and fried them with the mushrooms. I also sprinkled in some nori flakes.

The end result seemed slightly bitter/sharp for my tastes, so maybe I shouldn’t have tweaked it so much. :-> I ended up sprinkling some sugar on the mushrooms. But yeah, it was very good. Next time I’ll make more marinade (I had about half a portion of both the marinade and the mushrooms).